Competing Identities, Shifting Investments, and L2 Speaking During Study Abroad

Abstract

Why learners return from study abroad (SA) with varying degrees of second language (L2) gains or differing attitudes towards the target language and culture remains an open question. This study employs theories of identity (Kinginger, 2013) and investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton Peirce, 1995) to examine the case of three learners of Spanish as they studied abroad in Spain. Interviews, journals, and language-use surveys were analyzed to understand how and why these learners' investment in Spanish and in language learning opportunities shifted throughout their program. Pre-and post-SA speaking abilities tests in Spanish were used to measure how participants' investments related to their L2 speaking development. The three case studies suggest that participants negotiate competing and fluctuating desires, identities, and investments that often lead to contradictory behaviors regarding their language learning and use while abroad. These opposing investments and identities stem from participants' expectations of an idealized SA experience and their belief in the capital (Bourdieu, 1986) that Spanish may offer them back home and abroad. This study further finds that participants' ongoing investment in learning and using Spanish relates to their L2 speaking gains post-SA.

For Critical Language Awareness and Against the “Exclusive-use-of-the-target-language” Myth: The Effects of Sociolinguistic Content in English in an Elementary Spanish Classroom

“…The results of four case studies revealed how African American students co-constructed and negotiated multiple racialized, gendered, and classed identities, and how their investment influenced their learning of Portuguese. Also conducted in a study abroad context (in Spain), Quan (2019) explored learners' identity and investment in Spanish and how this investment related to their post study abroad speaking abilities. The results revealed that participants' idealized perception of the study abroad experience and their belief in the capital that Spanish could offer them led to competing identities and investment, and resulted in contradictory language learning behavior.…”

The Ecology of Study Abroad for Language Learning: Synthesis and Interdisciplinary Insights

“…On the contrary, sojourners draw on many different strategies depending on how their characteristics fit the situation in which they find themselves (Allen, 2013). Sojourners can also have conflicting desires within themselves that ebb and flow, manifesting in contradictory behaviors in a short period of time (Allen, 2010b;Quan, 2019;Wolcott, 2013). A sojourner might begin one day with a somewhat distanced, anthropological perspective, but become emotionally engaged in new relationships by the afternoon because of interactions with L2 speakers on a personally relevant topic.…”

The Role of Second Language Motivation in Constructing the Self: An Empirical Study to Investigate the Role of Motivational Trajectories in Negotiating and Reconstructing Academic Sojourners’ Desired Selves in the UK

“…In foreign contexts, L2 learners' engagement with the target language is often accompanied by an imagined community constructed through learners' imagination (Kanno & Norton, 2003;Wu, 2017). The imagined identity in the imagined community creates a powerful vision for the self, giving an important sense of direction in order to be in that community (Kanno & Norton, 2003;Quan, 2019;Trentman, 2013). Therefore, when learners go beyond investing their time, effort and money to further invest their identity in L2 learning, they expect to gain a range of symbolic (i.e.…”

“…Less significant members in learners' lives play a crucial role in shaping their L2 motivation and investment. Within social dialogic interactions between their voice and the words of others, Arya and Andi negotiate their social identity (Norton, 2013;Quan, 2019) by "selectively assimilate the words of other" through 'analysing how native speakers speak' and 'catching some sentences' to author their own voice within the community (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 341). This identity negotiation occurs in an ideological environment where the 'ambiance', embodied by less significant and general others, is supportive, indulgent and exhilarating that stimulates greater investment in L2 learning.…”